Butterfield Bank, Bermuda
Project Management
Situation
Butterfield Bank (BB) was formed in 1758 from one of the oldest trading companies in Bermuda, and is one of only three full-service personal and corporate banks on the island. Their interests extend also to the Caribbean, the Channel Islands, the UK and the Far East.
In 2003, BB made the strategic decision to replace a variety of banking software packages running on a variety of mainframes and minis by a single new package running on Wintel servers. BB asked for Charteris’ help in a variety of areas:
- Initial programme scoping and organisational setup
- Initial business requirements specification
- Quality review of programme management processes
- Ongoing programme management support
- Vendor negotiations
- Programme Director
Charteris Role
Initially, BB approached Charteris for external help because it had not completed any project on this scale in the recent past, so Charteris supported the initial project setup using a modified Prince2 methodology, and helped to define the business requirements to the software supplier.
After an initial period of program planning and the start of implementation, BB asked Charteris to undertake a quality audit of the whole programme. An experienced consultant undertook a three month review of the whole programme and recommended various process changes, which were implemented.
In a later stage of the programme, Charteris was also asked to provide an extremely experienced programme director. The second Charteris consultant was in post for seven months during which time the programme management was placed on a much firmer footing with regular reporting, active management of risks and issues, a more rigorous budgeting process, and intensive supplier negotiations, which resulted in a much-improved contractual relationship and improved financial terms for BB.
Finally, the original consultant was asked to stay on for another 6 months (a total of 14 months) while a new management team was briefed to take over from the Charteris programme director. The final stages of Charteris involvement again concentrated on the contractual relationship between BB and the software supplier.
Solution
The main benefit of Charteris involvement was effective management of the whole programme. This led to improved savings in comparison with what the outturn would otherwise have been, and in an improved contract with the supplier. The key benefits to the customer were that
- By appointing Charteris staff to key roles in the programme, they gained access to experienced people who could operate in a complex environment and handle a challenging supplier.
- There was competent programme management, resulting in client executive management becoming aware for the first time of the true status of the project.
- They received regular management reports which accurately and trenchantly describe the current situation, together with specific recommendations for action.
- There was forceful vendor management and contractual negotiations.
- There was accurate budgeting.